Closing the Opportunity Gap Identity-Conscious Strategies for Retention and Student Success

• Main Author: Pendakur, Vijay
• Format: eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Routledge 2016; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: College dropouts; Culturally relevant pedagogy; Educational equalization; First-generation college students; Minority college students; Prevention; California State University; Social Capital; Retention Strategic Plan; Kickoff Event; Career Capital Development; Homeless Students; Family Engagement; Empowerment Agents; Career Capital; Career Discernment; Color Initiative; Student Affairs; Campus Partners; Grade Point Average; Marginalized Students; Student Success; Credit Hours; Young Men; American College Health Association; Opportunity Gap; Financial Aid; Career Coaching; Low Income College Students; Low Income Students; Spirit Airlines; Leadership Development; GPA; Empowerment Agent; Cohort Members
• ISBN: 9781620363126; 1620363127; 9781620363119; 1620363119
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003443414

This book offers a novel and proven approach to the retention and success of underrepresented students. It advocates a strategic approach through which an institution sets clear goals and metrics and integrates the identity support work of cultural / diversity centers with skill building through cohort activities, enabling students to successfully navigate college, graduate on time and transition to the world of work. Underlying the process is an intersectional and identity-conscious, rather than identity-centered, framework that addresses the complexity of students' assets and needs as they encounter the unfamiliar terrain of college.In the current landscape of higher education, colleges and universities normally divide their efforts between departments and programs that explicitly work on developing students' identities and separate departments or programs that work on retaining and graduating higher-risk students. This book contends that the gap between cultural/diversity centers and institutional retention efforts is both a missed opportunity and one that perpetuates the opportunity gap between students of color and low-income students and their peers.Identity-consciousness, the central framework of this book, differs from an identity-centric approach where the identity itself is the focus of the intervention. For example, a Latino men's program can be developed as an identity-centered initiative if the outcomes of the program are all tied to a deeper or more complex understanding of one's Latino-ness and/or masculinity. Alternately, this same program can be an identity-conscious student success program if it is designed from the ground up with the students' racial and gender identities in mind, but the intended outcomes are tied to student success, such as term-to-term credit completion, yearly persistence, engagement in high-impact practices, or timely graduation. Following the introductory chapter focused on framing how we understand risk and success in the